THE farmer plants his field of corn—the kind that doesn’t pop—and hopes
that on some autumn morn he’ll start to shuck his crop. And shuck his
crop he often does, which is exceeding queer, for blights and perils
fairly buzz around it through the year. I think it strange that farmers
raise the goodly crops they do, for they are scrapping all their days
against a deadly crew. To plant and till will not suffice; the men must
strain their frames, to kill the bugs and worms and mice, and pests with
Latin names. The cut worms cut, the chinchbugs chinch, the weevil weaves
its ill, and other pests come up and pinch the corn and eat their fill.
And then the rainworks go on strike, and gloom the world enshrouds, and
up and down the burning pike the dust is blown in clouds. And if our
prayers are of avail, and rain comes in the night, it often brings a
grist of hail that riddles all in sight. And still the farmers raise
their crops, and nail the shining plunk; none but the kicker stands and
yawps, and what he says is bunk. If all men brooded o’er their woes, and
looked ahead for grief, that gent would starve who gaily goes to thresh
the golden sheaf.
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